Christina Applegate Has Departed NBC's Up All Night

If I didn't know any better, I'd say this was all a part of Jack Donaghy's plan to tank NBC. What in the world is going on over at Up All Night? After several storyline fits and starts, NBC hatched a plan to do a dramatic series shift from a single-camera comedy approach to a more "traditional" multi-camera sitcom. Well, a wrench has been thrown in that already out-of-the-box...way out-of-the-box plan. Series star Christina Applegate has departed the show, Deadline reports.

"It’s been a great experience working on Up All Night, but the show has taken a different creative direction and I decided it was best for me to move on to other endeavors,” Applegate said. “Working with Lorne Michaels has been a dream come true and I am grateful he brought me into his TV family. I will miss the cast, producers and crew, and wish them the best always.”

Will NBC even continue with plans to revamp the series at this point?

As Alan Sepinwall at HitFix noted, here's what's happened on this topsy-turvy show to date: Applegate and Maya Rudolph's characters went from being PR specialists in the original version of the pilot to the producer and host of a talk show, respectively, when the show actually debuted. Then the talk show had a new management team to deal with and then – within the world of Up All Night -- it was cancelled at the beginning of Season 2. At this point, the series abandoned another central conceit when Will Arnett's character, a stay at home dad, went back to work and Applegate returned home to be a mom. Restoring order to the universe? They also introduced a wacky brother into the mix to shake things up, which seemed to do little more than confuse the audience. It was shortly after this period that the switch to a multi-cam formula was announced, which was followed quickly by creator Emily Spivey's departure from the series.

Deadline also reports that there are plans to shift the focus to the Oprah-esque talk show that Rudolph's character once had. The only trouble is that, as mentioned, her show got cancelled when Season 2 began...So what is the plan here? To have Rudolph's show magically renewed? Stranger things have happened on television. In fact - they're happening on Up All Night! As Eric Goldman asks: Will Rudolph now be the mother of the baby? Do they plan to simply kill Applegate off?

The outlet theorized that Friends alumn Lisa Kudrow may step in as a replacement, but the actress' producing partner, Dan Bucatinsky, has already dispelled that rumor on twitter. "It's not true. No truth to it at all. RT “@KateAurthur: @danbucatinsky If Lisa Kudrow is JOINING UP ALL NIGHT (per Deadline),” he tweeted.

Meanwhile, we can look forward to seeing Applegate in a reprisal of her role in the upcoming Anchorman sequel.

Roth Cornet is an Entertainment Editor for IGN. You can follow her on Twitter at @RothCornet and IGN at Roth-IGN.